


Colour Blind

by sparrow2000



Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-06
Updated: 2014-07-06
Packaged: 2018-02-07 17:59:07
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 952
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1908477
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sparrow2000/pseuds/sparrow2000
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Post the wedding that wasn't, Xander cleans up and has a shave</p>
            </blockquote>





	Colour Blind

**Author's Note:**

> Warnings: little bit of angst  
> Disclaimer: Joss and Mutant Enemy et al own all. I own nothing.  
> Beta extraordinaire: thismaz  
> Comments are cuddled and called George
> 
> I'm gradually posting some of my older stuff. Here's a one shot written back in 2007 for tamingthemuse.

Xander missed Anya. He wouldn’t admit it. Wouldn’t let anyone see the pain and the hurt, eating him up inside. Wouldn’t talk about the why’s and the wherefore’s of the wedding that wasn’t. Wouldn’t excuse himself and blame the faulty visions. He wouldn’t let himself off the hook and he didn’t blame her when she went back to the vengeance gig. He expected retribution - instead of this phantom ache, he would have embraced something physical. But it didn’t happen and he missed her. The apartment seemed empty and sad now she’d gone and he couldn’t fill the space, no matter how high he turned the volume. And he wouldn’t let himself cry.

He tried not to dwell on the past, to put on a brave face, borrow Giles’ stiff upper lip and put his best foot forward. If he could have found any other clichés, he would have slipped into them like well worn sneakers. It was about armour, about defences and he was the master of disguise. But sometimes, just sometimes, it all got too much, with the responsibility and the scheduled apocalypse and the demon du jour, and he wanted to curl up and hibernate until it all went away. But it wouldn’t go. No matter how much he drank, it wouldn’t go away.

He woke up with another hangover, or maybe it was an extension of the one before, or the one before that. Shambling from the bedroom to the bathroom he paused and looked at the devastation in the apartment and he wondered briefly if a bunch of Sepavro demons had been partying when he wasn’t looking. But he knew he was looking for an excuse not to face reality and there was no excuse. Bottles littered every surface and he realised he’d been keeping the local take-out services afloat for the last few weeks – Pizza, Chinese, Indian and good old Mickey D – no one could accuse him of being a xenophobic drunk. Drink, eat, collapse, he could do it in a dozen languages.

Standing, blinking owlishly at the mess, he ran a clammy hand across his face, pausing at the sweaty forehead and the 3 day stubble, and he finally had a moment of clarity: she wasn’t coming back and he couldn’t live like this. Not any longer.

The resolve was shaky, but it was there, and he clung to it like a life raft. Before he could change his mind and retreat back to bed, he rooted in the kitchen cupboards for garbage sacks and started to shovel the detritus of a too long binge into plastic oblivion.

Forty minutes later, and he could see surfaces for the first time in weeks and the room almost looked habitable. Almost. Encouraged by the result of positive action, he ambled into the bathroom – a shower and a shave would make him a new man and he though he might even have the nerve to tackle the laundry, before it decided to tackle him. Standing under the shower, wallowing in the heat, he blessed Anya for insisting on a new water heater. No way was she going to have her shower run cold when she was half way through her weekly body scrub! He washed his hair briskly, left the glorious warmth with regret and towelled himself dry. Just a shave to go and he might even feel human again.

Wandering over to the sink, he damped his skin and squirted a blob of foam onto his hand, before spreading it over the stubble across his jaw and chin. He picked up the razor and on automatic pilot, started the ritual.

But it didn’t work. He just moved the foam around his face, but the blade was blunt and the stubble was born on the Hellmouth and it was stubborn. Sighing, he felt his positive mood start to evaporate, and he gave himself a mental shake and bent down to rummage in the cupboard below the sink for a fresh set of blades.

His prize was tucked at the back of the top shelf, behind the guest toothbrush and the 3 pack of toilet tissue. As he pulled out the pack of razors his hand brushed against a small box, wedged right in the corner. He put the blades down carefully on the floor, pulled out the box and as he looked at it, he thought that his heart might stop. Hair dye. Anya’s hairdye. He stared at the picture on the box; at the girl with the glowing skin and the impossibly shiny, blonde hair, and his vision shimmered and Anya stared back at him. The colour was ’Tropical Blonde’ and he could almost hear her in his head. She’d wanted that hair; she’d wanted to be the girl in the picture, with the Hollywood colour and the killer smile. She’d been sure that if she could be that girl, she would be the perfect girlfriend, the perfect wife and she could have her perfect life. He ran one shaking finger down the picture as he remembered that the dye had reacted with whatever she had put on her hair the time before and, instead of ‘Tropical Blonde’, she had come out a weird gingery tone. She’d been furious and distraught and threatened to sue the cosmetic company, but in the end she’d gone to the salon and he’d paid for the colour correction. And she’d looked so beautiful and happy when she’d come home.

Xander knelt on the hard tile of the bathroom floor, shaving foam forgotten on his face and razors abandoned at his side. He clutched the empty box of dye and stared at the girl in the picture. And finally, he let himself cry.


End file.
